


Oasis

by stolasbird



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/F, no survivors, rhalgar's reach declared gay girl ground zero, sadder than I wanted it to be tbh but that's how it is on this bitch of a mothercrystal, there's some brief implied naago x wol too if thats your thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 14:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stolasbird/pseuds/stolasbird
Summary: After the rebellion, Lyse's mind has time to wander to more important things. For example, is this woman she's known for years flirting with her?After her recovery, Y'shtola's mind has time to wander to more important things. For example, how obvious to make it she's flirting with the girl she likes?





	Oasis

“Is this all we have available, M’naago?”

“Aye, ma’am. The tomes from the royal library haven’t yet been fully recovered. The ones the Imperials didn’t see fit to burn, at least.”

Lyse frowned, thinking. The book she needed was definitely something the Garleans would’ve put to torch. “Thank you...I’ll, ah, send for someone when I’m done with these.” She glanced at the title of one of the books spread out on her personal table. Atlas of Peoples: Sociology of the Races of Eorzea. 

Frown. Grimace. 

Well, if she had to suffer through 150 pages of Xaela mud wrestling to understand Seekers of the Sun courting, so be it. This was important. Sort of. 

“Ma’am…?”

“Oh - sorry, M’naago, you’re dismissed.”

“Aye.”

M’naago sighed deeply as she walked away. She wished Commander Lyse would just ask her. 

-

“Madam Rhul, it’s still very early for you to be walking, especially without a cane…”

Y’shtola paced and held her tongue in the infirmary. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the efforts of her healers and chirurgeons, but being in bed for too long made her testy. Being injured made her testy. Being testy made her like her teacher, and being like her teacher also made her testy. 

She ‘tch’d’ loudly and paused long enough to at least accept the offered walking cane from her healer. 

“Ser, perchance answer a question.”

The young Raen surgeon on the other end of her clear irritation flinched slightly. He’d worked here long enough to know Y’shtola was a bit of a monster patient. 

“A-Aye?”

“A few moons ago, when I was fading in out of consciousness because of Ser’s - “ here, she turned to look at him directly in the eyes. “ - pain medication, did anyone come to this clinic to visit me?” 

“A-Aye…”

“Who?”

“T’was Madam Hext, ah...you requested her to be let by, and t’wouldn’t be proper to stop her anyway, as you two clearly seemed close and she’s the leader of our Resistance anyway, and as such - “

Y’shtola had been scooting closer to the Raen with each word. The wooden walking cane she was using seemed more like a weapon at this range. He sweated and bit his tongue.

“Yessss? Do go on. I am listening quite intently.”

“Ack.” He swallowed. “You were delirious, obviously, and spoke - “

“What did I speak?”

“Ma’am, I am not so base as to listen to two lovers’ conversation - “

Y’shtola did not say anything, but the Miqo'te’s glare interrupted him in her stead. The young suregeon wondered how the cat people DID that exactly - that is, make all of the light and joy suddenly go out of their eyes. There was a beat, before Y’shtola asked a question in a uncharacteristically quiet voice.

“Perchance what might made you think we were lovers, exactly?” 

“I, er, that is, I did see you touch Madam Hext’s face in a way that may have suggested, perhaps - “

Y’shtola turned and left. The Raen healer exhaled, suddenly feeling like crying. “More a jackal than a cat,” he muttered to himself as soon as he was sure Y’shtola was out of earshot. “At least she took her cane...ah, not my responsibility anymore. No, no.”

-

By the time Y’shtola had the composure to hobble to Lyse’s command tent, dusk had broken out and she’d made uncomfortable eye contact with both M’naago and the Warrior of Light, who offered her a thumbs up and a terse, knowing nod, respectively. The normally cool-headed Miqo'te was a mixture of anxiety and boiling irritation, stumbling over the pebbled grounds of the Reach with her cane. She muttered to herself, grousing about the fact that her apparent messiness was a public spectacle. After a malm of angry whispering to herself, she came to the conclusion that doing this was probably not helping her image, and she stop and turned towards the command and leadership tents at the end of camp, trying to at least work up a glamour of composure. She would apologize, she thought, for her indiscretion to a surely confused Lyse, and then go sit in her bunk and feel sorry for own damned self on her own time. 

Yes. That sounded fantastic.

When the guard allowed her passage into Lyse’s tent, she found the other woman asleep, hunched over a wide tome at a desk. She painted a strange picture in the faint moonlight and flickering lanterns; and the pale skin and red dress of a beautiful woman who was currently...drooling a little in her sleep, frankly. Still, Y’shtola’s heart suddenly bumped with a feeling of gratitude at getting to see the sight.

“Lyse…?” She called, gently. No response. Y’shtola muttered to herself, embarrassed once again. This felt decidedly private, but she needed to apologize before the situation worsened and Lyse thought even worse of her than she surely did now. She glided (as much as one could ‘glide’ with a cane) to the other side of the table, looking over Lyse’s crumpled form at the book she was reading out of curiosity. 

“Mm…Hello…?” Before she could reach down and try to make sense of the letters, Lyse shuffled and yawned. “Sorry, one mo - oh, Shtola!” 

There it is. Her name without the indicator, said with such genuine affection. Normally the Miqo'te would be ready with a quip, but none such came to her lips. “Aye,” she said, hoping she wasn’t blushing. 

“Oh - I’m sorry! You’ve, ah, caught me - unawares,” Lyse mumbled, definitely blushing herself as she straightened up in her seat, rapidly trying to clean her face with a forearm. She ran a hand through her hair, trying to access how much her nap had destroyed it. “Should...should you be walking?”

Y’shtola smiled distantly. “I was discharged. Regardless, I wanted to apologize to you.”

“Eh? What for?”

“When I was...ah, shall we say, under the weather - “ Y’shtola glanced at the ceiling of the tent, suddenly slightly bashful. “ - I made, it seems, some inappropriate advances toward you...I’m still not quite sure what I said in that state, but I shouldn’t have done such a thing regardless.”

Lyse looked troubled, her brow furrowed. There was a pause, the only noise outside some far-off ambient conversation and the sound of wind blowing through the valley. Y’shtola had enough time to think ‘gods, she must hate me now’ before the other woman responded.

“You...didn’t mean those things?” She whispered, quietly. “None of them at all? Just...drunkenness, then?” 

Y’shtola frowned. Was she disappointed? What?

“I really cannot remember...I’m sorry. I…mayhap you could tell me what I said to you?”

Lyse sniffed, strangely out of sorts. “You, ah, touched my cheek. And told me being apart from me was more painful than any wound.”

Y’shtola panicked. She briefly considered how fast she could run herself to a canyon edge and throw herself in. Too far. Not fast enough. After a beat, she cleared her throat quietly and muttered. 

“That’s not, ah, entirely, untrue, but it was forward of me, and to a comrade I’ve known for so long - “

She was in the middle of a stammered justification when Lyse stood and walked towards her slowly, the first woman’s body language tense and nervous. “Shtola, um...I missed you, too.”

Pause. Pause pause pause.

“Y...yes?? You...did??”

“I, um...I did. Is...that okay?”

A beat, again.

“It’s...more...than okay.” Y’shtola managed at last. 

Before she knew it, Y’shtola found herself in the taller woman’s arms. She tilted her head to look at Lyse’s face, feeling her dead pupils turning into invisible stars. “Lyse…?” She could feel Lyse trembling, and at one point, one was undoubtedly a tear fell onto Y’shtola’s face. 

“So many people have died, Shtola. When I saw that...when I saw Zenos cut you, I felt like...gods, I felt like death myself. When I saw good soldiers die, when I watched Conrad die, I felt overwhelmingly sad, and I cried...but nothing made that void in my stomach open up and threaten to swallow me whole like seeing you hurt did. Not being able to see and talk with you this long has hurt me almost as badly.” 

Y’shtola swallowed, tears coming to her own eyes. She sniffed, cleared her throat. “You’ve gotten better at speeches,” she said. 

“I had to.”

Both of them shared a moment, silently crying in the dusk. 

“Yes, I...I should not like to be apart from you for any period of time again, Lyse. If that...suits you.”

“To be honest with you, ‘Shtola, I, um, haven’t wanted anything else since we’ve met.”

Y’shtola’s ears perked up. “Geuinely?”

“Yes.” Lyse smiled, tears still wet on her cheeks.

A light-hearted scoff. “Well, in the future, please tell me such sooner, so we can spare ourselves years of emotional fretting.”

“Well, I - fine! I will!” 

They laughed together, tremors in both of their giggles, before Y’shtola felt her grip on her cane sag slightly and she slumped forward into the other woman, suddenly off-balance.

“Ah, apologies - “

“Oh! It’s fine, um, can I, help - “

“I should be alright - “

Before Y’shtola could protest further, Lyse leaned down and gently plucked the smaller miqo’te off the ground into a bridal carry. Y’shtola had just enough time to feel an extreme heat raise to her cheeks before she was deposited on Lyse’s feather bed. “Here, you really should rest.”

“Ah...fine. Just…” Y’shtola reached out, her hands grasping the edge of Lyse’s red dress. “Don’t go, for now.”

 

Lyse nodded, sitting down next to her on the bed. Y’shtola was asleep soundly even before Lyse gently began to stroke her hair, a gesture full of happiness and hope. When she would wake again, Y’shtola would find herself still ill, still injured, still hurting. 

But, she thought, not broken. 

That was fine.

-

“Wow. The commander was actually pretty cool there,” M’naago said, putting down her scouting binoculars. 

“You’re a bit of a pervert, Naago.” The Warrior of Light next to her, whittling a small piece of wood, remarked. 

Huff. “I was making sure no one needed help.”

“Aye, aye.”

Naago flicked her companion on the shoulder. “By the way, the commander seemed like she was really interested in that last book you gave her. What was it?”

“Hm…? Oh, something I went and got out of the Gubal Library for her. ‘Twas ‘A Record of Southern Sun Seeker Courtship Rituals and Genealogy.”

“I see.”

Both of them afforded the other a brief pause before sniggering and breaking into peals of laughter.


End file.
